


The more you know

by Sorran



Category: Fast & Furious (2009), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 07:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16698277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorran/pseuds/Sorran
Summary: Beating Kenny Linder to a pulp hadn't brought Dom's father back any more than beating up Brian would bring Letty back.





	The more you know

**Author's Note:**

> With big thanks to [Tiofrean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiofrean/pseuds/Tiofrean) for the no-notice feedback and suggestion to help make this better.

Dom is conflicted; guilty, sad, angry. He cannot help but wonder what Letty's last few days were like. So after he's talked to Brian, when he's finished dinner, he leaves Brian and Mia at the table, and goes through Letty's things. 

Her personal belongings are still in evidence bags. Dom frowns. Having to remove her phone from a carefully labelled envelope before he can look at it, touch it, to re-establish any sort of connection with Letty is so wrong it gives him pause. What the hell was Letty doing? Who did she get involved with to get herself killed?

Dom is idly fingering Letty's phone while his mind is going a mile a minute, and in a snap decision, he switches it on. The phone comes to life; Dom brings up the list of recent calls and pushes “call” on the last number Letty dialled.

Brian's phone rings. 

Dom watches with narrowed eyes as Brian reaches across the table for his phone, looks at the display, and then up and over at Dom. Sorrow, guilt, and then alarm chase each other across Brian's face. He gets up, swearing, and starts walking towards Dom. Brian's mouth is moving - no doubt more bullshit, and Dom is so sick of it - but Dom can't hear him over the sound of his blood pounding in his ears, doesn't want to hear him anyway. 

“When were you gonna tell me?”, he demands, closing in on Brian. “When were you gonna tell me you were running Letty?!”

“Let me explain…”, Brian starts, but Dom simply shouts over him, “When were you gonna tell me!”, question and accusation in one, and then he grabs Brian by the neck and throws him into a shelf. 

The shelf collapses on impact, and Brian goes down in a shower of breaking glass. Mia is screaming now, but Dom can barely hear her in his rage. He's on Brian before the other man has a chance to recover, picks him up by his throat and slams him against a filing cabinet. He's half choking Brian, half shaking him, and Brian flails. He puts his hands on Dom's face, tries to push him off, and when that doesn't work, he catches Dom in the jaw with a short, sharp left hook that does make Dom let go, if only to throw Brian down the steps into the back half of the room.

Brian may be taller than Dom, but he's lean length where Dom is bulky muscle, so he goes flying. A stumble over a chair halfway down the stairs sends him smacking his head off a table, and he lands on the floor with a grunt of pain, looking dazed.

Undeterred and no less enraged for all that he's obviously hurt Brian, Dom rains a series of blows on the younger man, some of which Brian manages to block, some of which find their target.

Brian's legs come up in defense, locking and closing around Dom's neck, but it doesn't stop Dom from picking him up and slamming him to the ground, forcing another grunt out of Brian. 

“She did it for you, Dom! She did it for you!” Brian shouts, sounding scared and a little angry, and Dom punches him again, because Letty is dead, and Brian needs to shut up and stop. Stop destroying Dom's family, and stop hurting the people Dom loves.

Dom can hear Mia screaming, feels her trying to physically pull him off Brian, but he can't stop himself. Brian curls up under his punches, trying to protect his head and mid-section, and he's shouting again.

“Dom, stop! Stop!” Brian's voice goes higher with every word, and he sounds truly scared now. “Dad, stop, please!”

Dom freezes.

For a few seconds the three of them remain in a bizarre tableau - Brian rolled up like an armadillo on the floor, Dom crouched over him, one fist raised in the air, and Mia behind Dom, hands clawing at his shoulders. 

Then Dom rocks back on his heels and stiffly gets up. Almost as an afterthought he bends down to offer Brian a hand up, but Brian just looks at him, expression inscrutable, and Dom suddenly feels a hundred years old. 

After Kenny Linder, he'd sworn to himself that he would _never_ lose control like that again, and yet here he is, shaking in the aftermath of his own rage, looking down at a man he was well on his way to putting into hospital just moments ago. Beating Kenny Linder to a pulp hadn't brought his Dad back any more than beating up Brian would bring Letty back though. 

“Fuck!” 

Dom's scream is raw. He'd thought he was better than that by now. He’d thought he'd learned. 

He’d also thought he knew all about Brian. Middle-class white boy who grew up in privilege and developed a taste for life on the wild side. 

It seems Dom is wrong on both counts. 

Mia's hand on his chest brings him back to the here and now, where Brian is slowly uncurling on the floor. He looks dazed still, and without thinking Dom makes to bend down again, help him up off the floor at least. A little more pressure behind Mia's hand stops him. 

“Back off, Dom”, she says, shaking her head. “Give him a moment.”

Dom steps back, hesitantly, and watches as Brian rolls onto his back, covers his face with his right arm and lets out a shaky breath. 

Mia kneels down next to him. “Come on, I'll check you over”, she murmurs, and Brian rolls over onto his side, heaves himself up. He sways a little, but remains upright and lets himself be guided back to the table by Mia. She has him park his ass on the table top, then reaches for the bag that hold the supplies she'd used to stitch up Dom's gunshot wound. 

She comes back with a penlight that she shines into Brian's eyes. He jerks back with a hiss, and none of them is surprised to hear Mia say “Probably a mild concussion”. 

Next she looks over Brian's face, palpates his nose, his cheekbones, his jaw. Brian flinches a couple of times, but Mia proclaims “Nothing broken”, before she takes a half step back to look at Brian. 

“You hurting anywhere else?”

Brian grimaces. “My ribs”, he says, and Mia nods, moving to help him lift his t-shirt.

“Check the seventh and eighth ribs on the left”, Dom hears Brian say through gritted teeth. “They're always the ones to break.”

Dom abruptly turns on his heel and leaves. He can't hear this right now.


End file.
